Cauliflower has foul smell

greenthumbsjMarch 23, 2010

I grew these from seeds - snowwhite/snowball(name evades me now). the plants did well and I have had two regular size harvest that tasted fine. There was one I picked last week that had really strong smell and I threw it away thinking may be squirrels peed on it :)

The one I picked yesterday had a bit of a strong odor too... not as bad and it can't be squirrel pee since I had the leaves tied for blanching. It was cauliflower smell but much stronges and not appealing to the taste. After cooking with garlic/soy sauce/coriander/bay leaves in a somewhat stir-fry fashion with curry flavor, the smell went away( or was subdued) and the taste was still great but the smell that was there when I picked it up bothered me. Also, I noticed only two of the 5 we harvested had strong smell.

I want to know if others had seen this and if they know of any way to fix this and if its safe to eat them.

to be honest, I am not sure as I have not grown them, but I lived in a cabbage/cauliflower growing region, and the smell from the fields, got progressively stronger as the season grew warmer, and the individual smell when I brought them was stronger as well, a really strong cauliflower/rotting/musty smell? the cauli, tasted fine, maybe it is just before they bolt, the scent changes? who knows?
just done a google search, nothing except the cooking smell! so clearly my sense of smell has been killed off by living near the fields as I have never notice that, but could the heat of the day be sort of cooking it, all be slowly? just a thought, by way of conversation but it might spark discussion. good luck in the quest.

Incidentally, I thought of heat as one of the issues and the google just pointed me to cabbage-smell during cooking. It has gotten a bit warmer lately and the days I harvested them were hot(relatively). Still have about 25 cauliflower plant left. I hope the rest don't suffer from the same issue. The taste is just amazing so I think its okay to eat them.